18 Weeks to Canadian Natural Championships

It always seems impossible until it’s done… I need to set seemingly impossible goals to experience the excitement that fuels my motivation. Without a challenge I’m unmotivated to commit to what I need to do for exercise and nutrition. However, for me there’s also a fine line between setting a goal that’s big enough to paralyze me with fear, and an even BIGGER GOAL where there’s so much excitement that it overcomes any fear. I’ve come to learn that if I find myself lacking in ambition, drive or motivation with anything it’s because I have not set a big enough goal. DREAM BIG or GO HOME!

The last time I competed at the Canadian Natural Championships in April, 2012 (where I placed 5th) I was 188lbs at about 6% body fat with a lean mass of 177lbs. My goal this time is to compete at a weight of 198lbs with 6% body fat (or less) and a lean mass of 186lbs. Currently, I’m sitting at 198lbs with 13.5% body fat and a lean mass of 171.3lbs.

In 18 weeks I need to build 14.9lbs of muscle while dropping 7.5% body fat (14.9lbs). Is this really possible? It always seems impossible until it’s done! This is where sharing a little bit of my transformation history is helpful. In this “before” and “after” pic from 1999 I built 18lbs of muscle while losing 20lbs of fat within 18 weeks. However, I was also quite a bit younger (29 years old vs 45 today) and my lifestyle was much simpler with no kids and a low stress job with regular hours. Now having two young kids and being self-employed working from home presents both challenges and opportunities. An edge I never had before though is the nutritional cleansing lifestyle we follow as part of our contest prep along with what’s proving to be a uniquely effective line of new high performance nutrition products. Alissa and I made the commitment from our first competition to avoid the use of any fat-burners or high stimulant pre-workout drinks and nutritional products of any kind containing artificial sweeteners or colours. That really cuts out A LOT of products out there! So we are very excited about having access to a completely natural line of products for enhancing performance and recovery.

It’s been 7 weeks since I started my prep and I could not be more pleased with my progress so far. Here are my results to date:

Body Weight = 196lbs to 198lbs (+2lbs)

Body Fat = 16.5% or 32.3lbs to 13.5% or 26.7lbs (-5.6lbs)

Lean Body Mass = 163.7lbs to 171.3lbs (+7.6lbs)

Before

After

Before

After

Before

After

If you believe the sky’s the limit, you probably won’t break through the atmosphere. But if you aim for the stars you’re much more likely to land on the moon!